Cosmic Intercourse
by Nevermore
Summary: Post AJBAC Only with Max gone does Logan gain the insight he needs to come to a startling conclusion about her... and Manticore.


James Cameron and Charles Eglee own Dark Angel

James Cameron and Charles Eglee own Dark Angel. My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned (or any other) copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons (either real or fictional) is unintended.

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Author's Note: I swore I wouldn't do this. I told myself, "No way, everyone is going to be writing fics based on AJBAC. Why not, at the very least, wait until the rush is over?" Then I was reading a forum post, and my muse (the female one) demanded that I write a fic. Now. So here it is. I know it's only a ficlet, but that's all I need to make my point. I hope you like it..............

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Cosmic Intercourse

by

Nevermore

When I was young, I had a friend named Judy Rourke. Her family was rich, just like all the other kids I knew, but I remember Judy more than the others because, to be quite honest, she was just so damned weird. Judy was the kind of kid that decided, in sixth grade, to take a vow of silence. She wrote a note to all of her teachers explaining that as a sign of her faith, she was refusing to speak for forty days. No one wanted to call her to task for it, because no one wanted to question anyone's religious habits. That would only have opened a whole can of worms the administration didn't want to have to deal with.

In seventh grade, Judy decided to be a hippie. That didn't go over as well with her peers as her vow of silence. I think the primary reason was that she didn't shower much. Eighth grade brought us Judy's quest to prove that extraterrestrials were living amongst us in Seattle. That ploy helped her regain a lot of her lost popularity, especially when she attempted to prove her theory through the use of a tuning fork that she swore would cause intense pain to any alien that heard the high-range noise. The only one that ever really seemed to hear it was old Mr. Perkins, who was left in acute pain every time his hearing aid started relaying the noise into his ears.

We wondered what Judy would do to kick off high school, and were greeted to a treat when we discovered that she had gone back to her religious roots and decided to become Buddhist. Only Judy could have pulled off wearing crimson and gold robes through her first two years of prep school.

It was something she said during our freshman year, though, that sticks out in my head. She had a crush on me, and in fact she was the first person I kissed. She claimed to be able to know everything that I was feeling or thinking at any point in time because our souls were having cosmic intercourse. The reason I'm reminded of that now is that I finally know what she was talking about. I now know what it's like to feel another person. I know because I can feel Max.

Bling has told me I'm crazy, but I know I'm not. Now, I know that I can't sum up intuition with something as clever as a ninth-grader's belief in souls engaging in a mystical union. That just wouldn't be my style. No, as usual, I base my beliefs in poorly supported anecdotal evidence and my own instincts. It's what a reporter does.

I remember when Max left the country to escape murder charges. She kissed me goodbye with those luscious lips, and we went our separate ways. Then I fell ill. There I was, lying on the operating table, and she called, seemingly out of the blue. I've asked Bling about it several times, especially recently, and he always gives me the same story – the way she talked made it seem as if she already knew something was wrong. So there it is, point one in support of my belief. Don't worry, though, it gets better.

Then there was the connection we shared. There was something almost unnatural about it. I knew there were several times she looked at me like she knew exactly what I was thinking. It was unnerving. It's the kind of thing that makes you wonder, even though you know it's not true, whether she actually could read my mind. Of course, every time I thought of that, I would tell myself, "Stop being silly, Logan, of course she can't read your mind. People can't really do that." Only recently have I realized the oversight in that statement. Max wasn't a real person, at least not the way the rest of us 'normal' people define the species.

The fact of the matter is that if I were trying to design a super soldier, one of my primary goals would be to make them telepathic. Think of the advantages a telepath would gain in a combat situation. Or even better, in an infiltration or assassination situation. It makes sense, doesn't it? It's like something Lydecker himself let slip about the X-7's – they have a hive mind. I didn't notice his comment at the time, but after replaying the events of that night in my head at least a hundred times, I've come to the conclusion that he meant something more than just that the X-7's worked well as a unit. I think he meant it literally – the entire crop could think and act as one. Now think of the tactical advantage to be gained in that.

Obviously there are holes in my theory, the greatest being how Max could have gotten so old without knowing, or at least letting on, that she was a telepath. I don't know the answer to that one. Maybe she kept it a secret. Maybe it was kept a secret from her. She did leave Manticore before reaching puberty, maybe there was a drug she should have received to fully activate the power, but she missed out. The result might simply be a heightened sense of intuition.

Whatever it is, I felt a connection with her. I've felt it when we first met, and I felt it when she was out of sight. I felt that connection become severed when she was running across the grounds of Manticore, but then I felt it come back to me as we drove away into the night. I don't know what it means, for sure. Maybe Bling is right, and I've been fooling myself. But maybe I'm right, and this tingling I feel in my head is the only sign I may ever get that Max is still alive. I don't know what good that information does me, since I'm powerless to get her out, but where there's life, there's hope. Especially if she's as strong as I suspect.

Fin


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